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Southern San Diego

Photo Credit: San Ysdiro Chamber of Commerce

Like the Southwest? This region is as southwest as the U.S. gets, geographically speaking. Hugging the U.S. border with Mexico, Southern San Diego handles the traffic to and from Tijuana. The traffic has urbanized some of its neighborhoods, while others remain in a rural siesta.

Southern San Diego’s neighborhoods include:

Nestor
Otay Mesa
San Ysidro
Tijuana River Valley

View healthcare facilities in Central San Diego

Nestor
Originally the farm of state assemblyman and harbormaster Nestor A. Young, the subsequent community—developed when Young sold the land in the 1890s— affectionately adopted his first name. Farmland gave way to residential dwellings, yet one can still find farms, stables, and citrus groves here.

Nestor’s rural aura is brightest where it backs up against the Tijuana River County Open Space Preserve. Many of the residents, half of whom are Latino, feel a special connection to the river, even though it’s known for its pollution. And with the U.S.-Mexico border a mere 10 miles away, residents have easy access to Tijuana.

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Otay Mesa
Here’s an example of how location is everything: Located just northeast of Tijuana, Mexico, Otay Mesa (a Native American phrase meaning “brushy place”) is ideally positioned. Companies located here can carry out labor-intensive production in Mexico, while other commercial processes are performed in the U.S. The creation of the Otay Mesa Port of Entry in the 1980s persuaded corporations like Sony, Sanyo, Honeywell, Fujitsu, and Panasonic to build distribution and assembly facilities here.

This vast industrial presence has transformed much of Otay Mesa’s former farmland and ranchland into an international commerce center, touting economic development incentives and industrial space at attractive lease rates. A high-technology business park is on the drawing board. Community “facilities” include Brown Field Airport and the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility.

Beyond employment opportunities, the neighborhood’s metamorphosis has directly benefited residents, 60 percent of whom are Hispanic. Otay Mesa features four parks, a recreational center, shopping centers, department stores, supermarkets, beauty colleges, several public schools, and a respectably sized library. Housing includes many multi-family dwellings and some single-family homes.

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San Ysidro
Exit Tijuana northbound and you’ll enter San Ysidro. Called the “Gateway to the Americas,” this neighborhood receives traffic from the world’s busiest international border crossing, thanks to the construction of I-5 and I-805. And the community capitalizes on its port-of-entry position with a large factory-outlet center and other retail areas.

In 1909, San Ysidro was founded as Little Landers Colony, a get-back-to-nature settlement. As colony dwellers grew their own food on one-acre parcels, the colony was renamed San Ysidro, after the patron saint of farmers. Today’s residents (a population about 75 percent Latino) live in older homes with gardens, newer housing complexes, and apartments.

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Tijuana River Valley
It’s hard for folks not to talk about sewage when discussing this southwestern tip of the contiguous United States. For decades, factions in Mexico’s Tijuana dumped raw sewage into the Tijuana River, damaging the valley’s environmentally sensitive habitat for endangered species. In the 1990s, after much lobbying from environmental activists, the federal governments of the U.S. and Mexico jointly built a wastewater treatment plant for Tijuana’s sewage. Yet pollution still seeps into the valley from plant failures, flooding, and Tijuana’s non-sewer areas.

While its sewage steals the headlines, the Tijuana River Valley has much more to offer. Over 370 species of birds visit the Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve, which features dunes, salt marshes, mudflats, brackish ponds, coastal sage scrub, and vernal pools. A Visitor Center provides information about the Reserve, and equestrian stables offer rentals for horseback rides along valley trails. The river valley also is home to farms and a sparse population (114 in early 1999).

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Healthcare facilities in Central San Diego:
Scripps Memorial Hospital Chula Vista
Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center